A co-founder of the New Urban and Traditional Architecture Councils.I was also a co-founder of the pro-urb list, a forum on the internet for an advanced discussion of New Urbanism. And in this blog you will find some postings from that list, along with other writings and clippings on architecture, urbanism, Classicism, Tradition, metaphysics and culture.

My Comment on Chris Gray's "A Landmark Lost and Found" in the New York Times

FROM THE COMMENTS SECTION: Let's look at the photo again. The arch is lipstick on a pig. The station behind it looks like a Los Angeles shopping mall circa 1980–in the heart of one of the world's great cities.

The people in the drawing look like ants. The building behind them has nothing that relates to human scale. It doesn't even look like humans built it: there is no sense it was touched by a human hand, either in the design or the construction.

London is an enormously wealthy city these days. It can't do better than that? (postscript after the jump)

PS: Here's a photo of one of the oldest streets in London. It was a wonderful place to walk until Global Capitalism and its bankers decided they needed new places to roost.

NICE—but will drones soon be colliding over the streets of Manhattan?

Saturday, November 16, 2013

New York, New England, New Marlborough

ONE of the many great things about New York City is that it's easy to get from New York to many great places. We tend to head northeast to New England.

The Berkshire mountains in Western Massachusetts are distinctly not in New York, even though many New Yorkers visit the Berkshires. There are many beautiful ways to drive there, none of which require getting on an interstate highway. You can make the trip in 2 hours, or you can make it take all day. There are also trains to Dutchess County, New York, and people are working on a reviving the old rail line, which still has daily freight trains.